


somebody hold me too close (somebody hurt me too deep)

by justapigeon



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canon deaths, Friendship, Gen, Implied Zukka, Love, M/M, Mentions of Death, Mentions of alcohol, Post canon, Sokka (Avatar) Needs a Hug, Sokka gets a little drunk and talks about love, thinking about love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:27:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26064964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justapigeon/pseuds/justapigeon
Summary: It’s a quiet night. A good night to slip away from the guestroom in Toph’ school and go sit in the grass with his face to the sky and stain his almost-new clothes -he’s grown, he’s taller and broader than when he was saving the world-.It’s a good night to think about love.Sokka does exactly that. Sits in the grass and thinks about love.- but to love is to lose, isn't it? -
Relationships: Aang/Katara (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), Toph Beifong & Sokka
Comments: 9
Kudos: 54





	somebody hold me too close (somebody hurt me too deep)

**Author's Note:**

> Kinda sad kinda wholesome Sokka being a little drunk and thinking of love and of how much loving hurt him. This boy's girlfriend turned into the moon I'd be scared of loving too.

It’s a quiet night. A night of ink-like darkness and silence. A night filled only by the distant singing of crickets and the spring breeze playing an orchestra of leaves and tall grass and Sokka’s very loud thoughts.  


It’s a quiet night. A good night to slip away from the guestroom in Toph’ school and go sit in the grass with his face to the sky and stain his almost-new clothes -he’s grown, he’s taller and broader than when he was saving the world-.  


It’s a good night to think about love.  


Sokka does exactly that. Sits in the grass and thinks about love.  


And perhaps he drank a bit too much rice wine that evening, but it’s not that bad of a thing to be thinking about -there are far worse thoughts to be focusing on, on a quiet dark night like that-.  
Bottomless pits of anguish it is far too easy to fall into, on a quiet dark night like that.  


Love is a good thing to be thinking about.  


Sokka leans back, the grass tickling the palms of his hands, and takes in the night sky. The vast blackness sprinkled with stars and a moon that is but a thin curved line.  
If he squints hard enough and tilts his head, he can pretend it’s Yue smiling down at him.  


Though, that might be the rice wine again.  
The rice wine he drank with Toph over dinner and that is making him think of love, a capricious helmsman that steers any thought towards love love love love love love love.  


Sokka lets himself fall backwards so that he is lying on the grass, arms crossed behind his head.  
The crescent moon is so very pretty, in that quiet night.  


He wonders if Yue is looking down at the world. If she’s looking down at him. If she thinks about him, sometimes. If she thinks about love too, sometimes.  
He wonders if Yue knows he still loves her, he never stopped.  


The ocean can’t stop letting itself be pushed and pulled by the moon’s will.  


He had loved Yue and learnt what being in love meant. Had loved her with the innocence and the fervour of a first love, that tied his tongue and his stomach in a thousand knots and made him fumble through his words and his steps.  
His awkwardness had made her laugh, and that alone had been enough.  


Loving her had been like… like riding Appa for the first time. Something weird and scary and amazing that made him want to puke and made him want to laugh.  
And it ended too soon.  


Because he hadn’t been able to protect her, no matter how much he loved her, he hadn’t been able to protect her. And Yue was gone, and though he still loved her -he would love her until the end of his life- and though she was still there -somewhere, up in the sky- it was not the same.  


Yue was gone.  


That brave young girl that laughed at his silly jokes and was ready to marry without love for the good of her Tribe -it resonated deep within him, that willingness to sacrifice, to protect-.  


_I have to do it_ -a loveless marriage, a sacrifice, the good of the Tribe, a life for the good of the Tribe-  


Yue is gone.  


The moon can’t answer to him, no matter how much he talks to her. The moon can’t laugh at his jokes, no matter how great they are.  


Sokka looks at the crescent moon that reminds him of Yue’ smile and wonders if she misses the world she sacrificed and sacrificed herself for. If she misses home.  


These thoughts make his head and heart hurt, so he brushes them away -it’s a good night to think about love, not do drown in sorrow, bottomless pits are easy to fall in- and thinks of home.  


The South, up until he was fifteen that had been the only thing he’d known. And then they’d found the long-lost Avatar and he’d seen that the world was so big -and was so small-. And though he still longs to visit and see and know, the South calls to him with a song he cannot tune out.  


The South Pole will always call him home.  


Home to the endless white and the artic lights and the penguin sledding races and seaprunes stew and Katara.  


Sokka is pretty sure he has loved Katara before he even knew what love meant -before he even knew that perhaps love isn’t a strong enough word for what binds him to his sister-.  


He loves Mom and Dad and Gran-Gran, sure, but it isn’t the same thing as loving Katara. He has grown to love Mom and Dad and Gran-Gran like a koala-seal learns to swim.  
Loving Katara is harder.  


Because she is bossy and she is mean and she is special and once, when Mom was still alive and the whole village in a frenzy because his little sister was a waterbender -was the last waterbender- and he’d found himself buried under a pile of snow by said little sister -blatantly breaking snowball-fights rules-, he’d found himself hating her as the snow soaked his clothes and his eyes closed shut.  
Then, Katara’s tiny hand had come to pull him out of his snowy prison, and she’d pressed her chubby cheek to his own and laughed like she wouldn’t laugh for years after and Sokka had already begun loving her again.  


And then Mom and Dad had shared concerned looks amongst the general jubilation and whispered of danger and raids when they’d been put to sleep. And then Mom was gone and the snow was marred black and red for too long.  
And Sokka knew, and Sokka choose, that he would protect Katara with his life. And when a Fire Nation ship had tinged the snow black again, four years before, he was ready to -though it hadn’t been necessary-.  


He loves his sister more than anything, no matter how infuriatingly stubborn she can be or how many preachy over-emotional speeches on hope she gives.  


Sokka yawns, stretching a little bit. Who knows what Katara is up to, travelling with Aang? -They’re headed to Kyoshi Island, according to her last letter-.  


He loves his little bald buddy too! Even if he’s growing far too quickly for his likings -he can’t be three years younger and already taller than him-.  


Aang is his brother, and not just because he’s dating Katara -he’s been his brother ever since the three of them huddled together by the ruins of a Temple that had once been a home and was now just a graveyard-.  


And Aang brought back hope and brought back fun, gave him back the right to just be a goofy kid -to joke for the pleasure of joking and not to sew a mask on hopelessness-. And he believed in Sokka, even when his plans failed or his words came out messy and tangled in front of crowds.  
And he’s still so young. And he’s still so good.  


Tui and La, Sokka wishes Aang will remain like this forever, he’d fight any bender or non-bender for him -he knows it won’t be necessary, not even the war has carved the joy out of his bald buddy-.  


Sokka wonders if Aang knows that he’s been his first friend.  
He wonders if he’ll try to ride the Unagi again, when he gets to Kyoshi Island.  


Sokka thinks of Suki and thinks of love and he smiles.  


He remembers talking to some Earth Kingdom civilian about planting grass -he does not remember why he was talking about planting grass with an Earth Kingdom civilian- and they’d told him that if the seeds are planted before winter the grass grows stronger because it has time to root into the ground. He hadn’t believed him, had said that the cold would kill the seeds but they had smiled and told him to wait, so Sokka did.  


He likes to think that’s what happened with Suki.  


A seedling planted when deft strong hands had painted his face white and red, when glinting eyes had met his on the battlefield of a training match, when chapped lips had kissed his cheek.  


A seedling that had survived the winter -the cold of the North, of a tribe that was supposed to be their sister and yet had left them to die, to starve out in their own home, the cold of a love so young and pure ripped from him far too quickly- and grown strong roots.  


He had thought he would never have loved again, and once again was proven wrong -Sokka realises, he’s grown surrounded by enough loss to not let it stop him from loving, pain is more manageable when expected-.  


He loves Suki as a friend just as he has loved her as a lover. It’s a love with too strong roots to be broken when they had said they needed to follow their own paths in life, a love with too deep roots to be defined by words -friend, lover, girlfriend-.  


And Suki is strong and she is brave and Sokka can let himself not worry as much for just a little just a moment.  


Although. He almost lost Suki too.  


He lost her, actually, and got her back by the spirits’ grace -Sokka doesn’t believe in spirits, it’s all science and strategy for him, things he can control, but he remembers the anguish of waiting surrounded by enemies and the gondola swaying over a boiling lake and he thinks that something must have helped them-.  


It’s a quiet dark night and the rice wine lets his thoughts become a swollen river, a crumbling path, it’s easy to slip it’s easy to misstep. Bottomless pits of anguish are easy to fall into.  


Sokka slips, Sokka falls.  


He tries to think of love, to think of Toph and Zuko and Mai and Ty Lee.  


But once you start falling, there really is not stopping on your own.  


Sokka tries to thinks of love, and he finds himself thinking of loss.  


Of houses becoming empty as his village dwindles down to nothing. Of a body, cold and still in a way that even ice isn’t, disappearing. Of taunting words that remind him he failed. Of barely-healed flesh on a young boy’s back, a young boy he sworn to protect -a young boy he saw lay lifeless-. Of black snow and red snow. Of a green-eyed girl in red prison clothes. Of ships leaving. Of faces he can’t even remember anymore. Of a tiny hand almost slipping from his.  


To love is to lose, he knows this. He’s learnt this.  


To love is to lose and no matter how expected the pain is, it still hurts.  


Sokka breathes in deep and one hand buries itself into his hairs and brushes and pulls and then falls to his side again -his undercut is growing longer, he’s not a boy anymore, he feels so old and he feels so young-.  


What colour were Mom’s eyes again?  


He shuts his eyes, shuts them so tight the blackness is buzzing. He can’t see the crescent moon anymore.  


He tries to thinks of Yue’ smile and finds the pale, thin and curved line of the moon glowing against his eyelids.  


The earth digs into his fingernails as he clutches the ground.  


Somebody sits down beside him -grabs him and pulls him back to a field under a spring night sky.  


“Toph,” he breathes out, hands shaking.  


She punches his arm, scoffing.  
“What the hell, Snoozles? Your heartbeat is too loud, it woke me up.”  


Sokka forces a chuckle.  
“Sorry about that.”  


Toph leans on his shoulder, a comforting weight, an anchoring weight.  


Sokka tries to think about love, about this brave little girl with the strength to move mountains, this terror in tiny body he has grown to love as a sister.  
He can only think of a hand gripping his own desperately. Of enemies behind and the void below and a war to end and a kid holding his hand.  


_I don’t think boomerang’s coming back_ -don’t think we’ll ever go back home-.  


He thinks of barely-healed flesh and the static smell of electricity aimed at his sister, bore by a friend -by the reason he ran away from the Southern Water Tribe Ambassador quarters in the Fire Nation-.  


He thinks of laughter by a pond and a Fire Lord asleep surrounded by turtleducks.  


He thinks of a mantra he’s never been able to stay true to – _protect protect protect_ -.  


Toph grips his hand.  
“What is it?”  


It feels like having to beak again a bone that healed wrong.  


“It’s love.”  


Toph hums, “Scary stuff.”  


He can’t love more than he has.  


“What if I can’t protect them?”  


Sokka thinks of assassins lurking on the roofs and councilmen lurking in the long corridors of a red palace. Thinks of a man -of a boy- he’s grown to love so and the unmeasurable weight on his shoulders. And the weight on his owns.  
Of dangers and constrictions and duties and expectations.  


“What if I can’t protect him?”  


He can’t lose more than he has.  


Toph holds his hand so tight he feels it might break.  
“You don’t have to protect everyone,” she whispers, “we’ll protect each other.”  


His hands still shake.  


Red silks -is it blood?-.  


“We are not at war anymore, Snoozles.”  


He nods, but the words slip past his ears unheard and a whisper slips past his lips.  


“But to love is to lose.”  


Toph stills, her hands shake a little bit too. It might be cause Sokka’s are earthquakes in flesh and bones. Or maybe not.  
“It is. Sooner or later. But sometimes it’s worth it.”  


Sokka sighs, forcing his hands to still.  
“I’m afraid.”  


Toph’s lips are a thin line.  
“I am too, Snoozles.”  


He grips her hand back, eyelids heavy with the tiredness of rice wine and heavy thoughts.  


“We’re not at war anymore.”  


“We’re not at war anymore.”  


Two kids sit in a field under the crescent moon on a quiet night. The spring breeze plays the leaves and the tall grass but it’s not enough to cover their loud loud thoughts.  
They sit on the grass and talk about love.  


And perhaps they drank a bit too much rice wine that evening -and perhaps the war still haunts them-, but it’s not that bad of a thing to be talking about.  


**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, or if you didn't, maybe leave a comment?


End file.
